Wedding Tip Wednesday: Automate Your Wedding Planning Process

When I started my business, I got really obsessed with automation. There are so many amazing tools out there that can help with all the dumb little stuff you don’t want to keep doing, checking, or searching for over and over again.

I think you should utilize these same magical powers to automate your wedding planning!

Automation is your like a magical wedding planning fairy, sprinkling pixie dust on your most tedious tasks!

If this is new to you, automation (roughly) helps two apps or programs connect with each other, so that a “trigger” in one program causes a helpful reaction in another program.

Here are some of my favorite real life automations:

• Whenever I arrive in New York City, I get an e-mail with a NYC subway map.
• When it’s forecasted to rain, my phone notifies me at 7:00am to pack an umbrella.
• When someone posts on Craigslist about needing a wedding photographer, I get an e-mail with the details of the posting. (And I have actually booked jobs this way.)

So flipping cool, right?!

The A-Z on Applets & Zaps

My two favorite automation apps are If This Then That (also known as IFTTT) and Zapier. They are competitors, so they have slightly different options and interfaces. But they are both fairly simple to use and they both have free plans. (Yes!)

Zapier calls automations “Zaps.” One great example is, you can get a text message every time one of your guests RSVPs online!

IFTTT is a little more user friendly with tons of pre-made “Applets,” so it’s easy to jump right in. They have even compiled their own list of automations to specifically help with wedding planning!

Here are some of my favorite wedding planning automations from IFTTT:

• Send your DJ an email when you add a song to your wedding playlist on Spotify
• Automatically save all Instagram posts with your wedding #hashtag to a specific Facebook album
• Save pictures of wedding receipts to Google Drive
• Automatically put important wedding deadlines into your Google calendar, just by writing a quick note
• Save pictures of wedding gifts and cards to Dropbox (or somewhere else)

There are so many more. I could go on and on.

• If you’re trying to follow Carla’s advice and hydrate before your wedding, you can set a hydration reminder that goes off every two hours.
• If you’re looking for something specific for your wedding decor, you can totally use my Craigslist wedding trick to track it down!
• If Pinterest is your jam, you can automatically Pin pictures you take at your wedding venue to a specific “Wedding Decor” board on Pinterest. (I made that Applet for you, just in case!)

Okay. I’ll stop there, but I’m sure you can see the incredible potential! I’d love to hear if any of these automations work for you or what other tips you have for simplifying the wedding planning process in the comments.